Drops in the Bucket
by The Laughing Phoenix
Summary: Drabbles on anything and everything in Bleach. Ten drabbles per scroll, updates will be sporadic. Randomness abounds.
1. First Scroll

Drops in the Bucket

Summary: Drabble collection on anything and everything in Bleach. Ten drabbles per chapter, randomness abounds, updates will be incredibly sporadic.

**The Laughing Phoenix** does not own Bleach. She is simply borrowing the franchise for the purposes of conjecture.

WARNING: Rampant speculation ahead.

* * *

First Scroll

**1)**

Every Shinigami is something of an investment. A lot of time, effort, and money is spent training reiatsu-possessing souls into hollow-killing specialists. Therefore, it is difficult to quit the Gotei 13. That's not to say it's impossible; for example, it is perfectly acceptable to leave the Gotei 13 due to old age or injury. In cases of familial duty, such as suddenly becoming clan head, the Shinigami in question is granted leave, though highly encouraged to stay.

This reluctance to release members grows exponentially as you go up the ranks. By the time you hit Captain's level, it is nigh-impossible to quit, short of crippling injury, extreme old age, promotion to the Royal Guards, or death.

So, when the captain of the 10th division fell in love with a spirit-sensitive human, he was smart enough to realize that he had a real problem on his hands. There was no way he could get away with marrying one of the living while he remained in the Gotei 13, and he was not going to subject either of them to waiting for her to die, not if he had a chance to get around the laws.

After a few months spent kicking around ideas with Masaki, he came to the conclusion that he'd have to fake his own death. So he spent the next couple of months hunting down Urahara Kisuke. Their first meeting was tense – he knew he'd never have a chance to bring Urahara down as the ex-captain was a truly wily opponent, and Urahara was naturally wary of anyone wearing a Captain's haori. Finally, however, he got Urahara to listen to his proposal.

Once Urahara had finally stopped laughing, he agreed to help, a smile that would make the Devil shiver in fear on his face. The exiled captain made a few calls, dug a few things out of storage, and in the end the plan was almost frightening in its simplicity.

The next night that the 10th division captain was on patrol near Karakura, a humongous hollow reading appeared just north of the town. As duty demanded, the captain hurried toward the site, and found himself face-to-face with a small girl wearing a hollow mask like an insect's. The 'battle', if it could be called that, was thoroughly one-sided. Despite being half his size, she kicked him several times around the meadow before knocking him through the wall of an abandoned house and to the floor at Urahara's feet.

Urahara shoved him into a gigai and the girl pulled off her mask, causing both of them to vanish from the Gotei 13's scanners. Once the captain was awake again, Urahara helped him create a new identity as Kurosaki Isshin, and got him the papers to get into University.

As Isshin was settling into his new life, Urahara sat him down and gave him as many of the details he felt necessary. One thing he stressed was that the gigai, while making him effectively human, was largely experimental. While Urahara felt that he'd probably be able to safely extract Isshin from the gigai without killing him or stripping his abilities as a Shinigami, it'd be at least twenty years before he could make that attempt.

Isshin thought that was an acceptable risk. As far as he was concerned, he'd never need to use his Shinigami abilities again. Fourteen years later, he changed his mind. He made a mental list of things to do once he had his abilities back. _Deal with Grand Fisher_ was at the top of his list, second only to _Make sure Ichigo is trained into the ground_.

**2)**

No Quincy has ever joined the Gotei 13. When this fact is brought to their attention, most Shinigami shrug and say that's just how it works. Some more intelligent Shinigami postulate that it has to do with the notorious hatred Quincy bear for the Shinigami, supposing that no self-respecting Quincy will join their enemy. Before Mayuri began his destructive campaign to examine and experiment on the Quincy, most Shinigami couldn't even say for certain if Quincy kept their abilities upon dying.

[It turns out that they do, but by that point Mayuri's single-handed genocide had rendered the point moot.]

Ishida Uryuu and Ryuuken are the last living Quincy. Among the dead, some of the Quincy still survive, hiding among the reiatsu-less souls. In a related matter, in districts 28-31 in each quadrant, a region that forms a rough circle on maps of the Rukongai, order is enforced by interrelated Yakuza families, disgusted by the lack of Shinigami policing. In all sixteen of these families, the Oyabun and his (or in one case, her) kin are known to be deadly with a bow.

**3)**

None of Yoruichi's friends will tell her just how perfect they think her animal form is as an expression of her personality.

**4)**

There is a pronounced tendency among the Gotei 13 to look down on those who come from outer Rukongai. Ironically enough, this prejudice has weakened the Shinigami.

You see, to survive in the outer Rukongai, you need to be tough. The reiatsu-producing souls who manage to survive the hunger their own abilities curse them with tend to be tougher, stronger, and more resilient than those from lower-numbered districts, who are more likely to be noticed by a Shinigami before they run any real risk of starvation.

Thanks to the way Shinigami denigrate the residents of outer Rukongai, only about half of those capable of manipulating reiatsu make their way to the Academy. The rest build power bases in their districts, using their abilities to lord it over those who don't possess them.

Once they reach the Academy, those from outer Rukongai are subjected to harassment and ridicule. Some respond by doing their best to beat the hell out of everyone around them, others choose to keep their heads down and deliberately don't mention their pasts. Almost none give up, though, because _nobody_ wants to go back.

The 11th division has the highest concentration of souls from outer Rukongai, drawn by a captain who is unashamed of his past in Zaraki district and who measures his subordinate's worth by how well they fight, not by their origins. Within any other division, many of them would make seated officer a few years into their career, but with Kenpachi as captain, the scale is skewed to the point that nobody seems to notice.

**5)**

Yoruichi would rather have walked over hot coals than admit it, but part of the reason she had driven Byakuya nuts as a kid was because she kinda-sorta-maybe wanted a little brother like him. Someone who actually cared about the honor of a noble clan but wasn't a total stick-in-the-mud, because then she could let him be clan head and deal with the old farts that made up the clan elders and she could remain just the captain of the 2nd division.

But she didn't have a little brother, so she'd have to make do. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on who you talked to) for him, Byakuya was the only noble in their age bracket who Yoruichi didn't think was a completely useless idiot. So, to demonstrate her approval, she kept engaging him in games of tag.

Which she always won.

**6)**

A lot of people assumed that Shiba Kuukaku lost her right arm in an accident with her fireworks. They were wrong.

When she was small, Kuukaku liked to follow her older brother into the foothills and mountains of Rukongai. On one of their outings, she'd wandered away from Kaien and was ambushed by a weak hollow. Kuukaku didn't even have time to scream before the hollow grabbed at her, cutting off her arm. It stopped to eat the limb, which gave Kaien the time he needed to snatch his sister out of the way.

What happened afterwards was always a blur to Kuukaku, and Kaien had never wanted to discuss it. From what she managed to piece together, Kaien had managed to drag her back several yards before the hollow came after them again, and he had interposed himself between his sister and the monster coming after her, throwing a rock at it. The rock actually hit the hollow, distracting it. It never noticed the patrolling Shinigami who killed it, mere feet from the two Shiba children.

Kuukaku had woken up in a clean bed in the Sereitei proper, hooked to an IV and with the stump of her arm neatly bandaged. A couple of days later, she was allowed to go home. She got a hold of a prosthesis, and after a lot of difficult and often painful work was able to use it almost as well as her normal arm.

Shortly thereafter, Kaien started at the Shinigami Academy. He'd had enough of beating himself up for not being able to protect his little sister – there were monsters out there, and he was going to do something about them. It was only later that he began to enjoy being a Shinigami for the job's sake.

Ganju does not know this. If Kuukaku has guessed, she will never tell him. There has been enough bitterness over Kaien's death.

**7)**

Hueco Mundo has, for as long as Shinigami history records it, used the Spanish language. Even Shinigami terms for various classes of hollow follow the pattern. Nobody's really cared to learn why.

In truth, the language of Hueco Mundo was Latin at the time Yamamoto founded his Academy. The residents of that world had gotten into the habit of borrowing the languages of the most powerful human empire of the time, and something about the language appealed. With the rise of emperors such as Hadrian, the dialect spoken by the residents of Hispania gained a brief popularity.

When Rome fell, other languages began to take dominance, and it wasn't for another nine hundred years that the language of the Iberian Peninsula came back into the common lexicon. With the movements of the _conquistadores_ came an influx of population, as the souls of angry, hurt, and betrayed _indios_ started developing into hollows at greater rates.

During what modern human history calls Spain's _Siglo de Oro_, the Shinigami finally began taking an academic interest in the way hollows organized themselves, a deviation from the policy of the past fifteen or so centuries, when the main focus had been building up numbers and destroying as many hollows as possible. The twelfth division finally managed to capture an adjuchas-class hollow for questioning, and much of what the Shinigami know about hollows and how they organize has to do with the information prized from him under torture.

The hollow in question had once been known as Francisco Pizarro.

For whatever reason, Spanish has remained the dominant language of Hueco Mundo, even after the fall of the _Imperio_. The newer hollows don't think to question it, and the Shinigami don't know to ask. A number of the older hollows, the ones who broke to adjuchas or vasto lorde before the defeat of the _Armada Invencible_, cast sideways glances at each other, then at the throne in the open hall of Las Noches. Like most hollows of their rank, the King that sits there is an amalgamation of souls. He is, however, rare in that the dominant personality is in fact a fusion of two powerful souls. One was Hernando Cortés. The other, Felipe II Habsburgo.

**8)**

Chad is not the first human to develop hollow-like abilities. He's just the first to be in prolonged contact with the Shinigami, and he happens to have better control than most.

Hollows are beings primarily composed of hunger, often with hair-trigger tempers. As a result, they are designed to be predators. Down through the ages, a small percentage of the human race has managed to pick up these predator's traits. Sometimes this is completely unconscious, sometimes the human recognizes the potential and undergoes various procedures (meditation and drugs are popular) to bring that potential to the surface. In some cultures a hierarchy of priests or wise men spends their time drawing that potential out of those who have it.

The end result is usually the same. The individual who picks up hollow-like abilities tend to be physically tougher than their regular counterparts, more resistant to force. Often, tempers get shorter and they are more likely to fly into a rage. The legendary Norse berserkers are excellent examples of this.

Chad's abilities were drawn to the surface completely accidentally, through prolonged exposure to Ichigo's sky-high reiatsu levels, the spiritual pressure doing what meditation and various rituals did to other people like him. His control was already in place, thanks to his grandfather's teachings back when he was a confused, scared kid in Mexico, and he's got too much discipline to let it slip now.

Chad has a very good chance of joining the vanishingly small percentage of humans with hollow-like abilities who are brought straight through to the Rukongai upon death. Whether he will become the first to join the Gotei 13 is a matter of debate, as up till now those like him have a tendency to remain in Rukongai.

It is established fact that most humans who gain hollow-like abilities either become hollows or go to Hell when they die. The framework for hollowfication is already in place, and the lives of violence they tend to lead makes it very easy for the scales to tip in Hell's direction.

Although not many Shinigami know Chad well, it is hard not to like him. Kyoraku, who knows or guesses more than most about the nature of Chad's abilities, occasionally spares a moment to hope that Chad will not follow the usual trend.

**9)**

One day, in the pause before the start of the Winter War, Kyoraku wanders into a Captain's meeting carrying a sheaf of paper. Across the top of the page are written four names: _Kurosaki Ichigo_, _Ishida Uryuu_, _Yasutora Sado_, and _Inoue Orihime_. While the captains mill around waiting for the meeting to start, Kyoraku starts passing the page around. When Ukitake asks what it's for, the eighth division captain waves a hand and says "Why, so we can make requests for when they join the Gotei 13, of course!"

"If they join the Gotei 13," Unohana murmurs, although that doesn't stop her from picking up a pen as she is handed the list.

Kenpachi and Ukitake request Ichigo, as does Kuchiki, although the latter points out that whoever gets the substitute shinigami will most likely lose him to captaincy in very short order. There is general nodding at this.

Unohana gets to the list fairly quickly – because she is a senior captain and nobody really wants to upset her – and puts her name down under Orihime's. Nobody requests the healer-girl after that, although it's obvious Kyoraku wants to. Unohana does not get stubborn about recruits very often, as she believes that the ones who belong in her division will find their way there, but when she does it's a little scary.

Uryuu gets requested by Komamura, Hitsugaya, and Soifon oddly enough. Soifon mutters something about interesting potential, Komamura merely says that he believes the Quincy would do well in his division, and Hisugaya shrugs and says that he's a good shot with a bow and an interesting person.

Chad is requested by Kyoraku and Ukitake, and the pair begin to cheerfully bicker among themselves over the mestizo. While they're doing that, Komamura adds his name to Chad's list as well.

Kurotsuchi tries to request all of them, but when Hitsugaya, standing next to him, hears the scientist mutter something about experiments he calmly tugs the paper away and crosses Kurotsuchi's name off the lists. Yamamoto calls the meeting to order before the 12th division captain has a chance to throw a temper tantrum, and the paper disappears into one of Kyoraku's pockets.

Every single captain hopes that it will be years before the paper makes a reappearance.

**10)**

When it comes to Ichigo and his allies in the world of the living, Kon may in fact be the most vicious. One of the lone survivors of Project Spearhead, his survival has given him both a profound respect for life and a deep well of anger to draw on.

In general, Kon leaves well enough alone. He's naturally very good-natured, and does not like remembering that he was created to be a weapon. He immerses himself in his goofy and perverted antics as a distraction. Sometimes he uses his clownishness to snap Ichigo out of the bouts of pensive reflection the substitute Shinigami is prone to. He'll never admit it, even to himself, but he's a little bit grateful to Ichigo – if it wasn't for him, Urahara would probably have put him back in a box in his warehouse or even destroyed him.

So, when Ichigo goes to Soul Society to rescue Rukia, Kon takes his job as temporary protector of the Kurosaki family seriously. He stays attentive, keeping half his mind on the Kurosakis, especially the girls, and the other on staying attuned to the spiritual pressure around him. (Unlike Ichigo, Kon actually is pretty good at sensing spiritual pressure.)

Very, very early one morning, Kon picks up on a hollow in the neighborhood. It's a couple of miles away, but that's no distance at all to a Mod-soul like Kon. The hollow doesn't even have a chance. Kon comes in kicking, landing straight on the mask. The impact dents the mask, and Kon bounces away, only to leap right back at the hollow, hitting it in the exact same place and causing the dent to turn into a crack. A third kick splits the mask entirely, and the hollow is destroyed. Kon watches until the body has completely disintegrated to make sure that it's really dead before silently returning to the Kurosaki household. Another hollow shows up some days later, only to be destroyed the same way.

Kon never mentions the hollows to Ichigo when he returns. In his opinion, destroying hollows is a little like putting down a rabid animal so it can't hurt those around it, not something to be proud of.

* * *

[A/N]: I'm not sure where half of these come from. Let's go with that.

I really don't know when this will get added to – it could be one month, it could be six. Each of these is pretty much a stand-alone. Once I have ten more, I'll add another scroll.

References:

Francisco Pizarro – there are several conquistadores of this name, but the one mentioned here was Francisco Pizarro González, 1st Marqués de los Atabillos. The bastard son of an infantry colonel, he's known to history as the man who broke the Incan Empire.

Hernando Cortés – also known as Hernán Cortés, but his full name was Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca. Famous for conquering the Azteca Empire in what is now Mexico, he's also notorious for assuming the identity of the Azteca god Quetzalcoatl while doing so. Second cousin to Francisco Pizarro.

Felipe II Habsburgo – the second of the Habsburg dynasty to rule Spain, he was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V and the great-grandson of Isabella and Fernando, _Los Reyes Católicos_. Anglo-centric history records him as a vain, bigoted, and ambitious tyrant, but Spanish history records him as one of the greatest kings the country ever had. He is said to have been austere and intelligent, if given to suspicion and micromanaging, a careful administrator and apparently genuinely cared about his subjects. It is unequivocally true that the _Siglo de Oro_, the greatest flowering of Spanish culture, began during his reign.

Thank you **Rusting Roses** for being a dear and betaing this quickly for me.


	2. Second Scroll

Drops in the Bucket

Summary: Drabble collection on anything and everything in Bleach. Ten drabbles per chapter, randomness abounds, updates will be incredibly sporadic.

**The Laughing Phoenix** does not own Bleach. She is simply borrowing the franchise for the purposes of conjecture.

WARNING: Rampant speculation ahead.

* * *

Second Scroll

**1)**

Isshin and Ryuuken's bizarre friendship, known only to a few, took years to forge and was far more durable than it might appear to outsiders.

The two of them met in Medical School. There was a group project for a Medical Ethics class the two were taking, and the professor had paired them up. At first, they got along like oil and water, Ryuuken's icy personality clashing with Isshin's more laid-back nature and bouts of goofiness. This was not helped by the fact that, even with the gigai rendering him human, Ryuuken could sense the Shinigami in Isshin. While he had turned his back on the Quincy ways, recognizing that if he wanted to support himself and his long-term girlfriend he'd need a more lucrative job, he had not shed the instinctive distrust the Quincy held for Shinigami.

Shortly after the project was complete, just before the end of the semester, Ryuuken confronted Isshin. The ex-Captain took a gamble, and spilled the entire story. Ryuuken was torn between amusement and exasperation, and promised to keep the fact that the man was still alive secret from any Shinigami he might run into. He recognized the information as leverage and filed it away for emergencies, planning to keep it as a trump card if he should ever need a weapon against the Shinigami.

After that conversation, Ryuuken was fully intent on letting the acquaintanceship die down. Ironically enough, the two of them kept registering for the same courses and bumping into each other on a regular basis. They eventually formed something of a working relationship – Ryuuken might not necessarily like the man, but he could respect Isshin's work and his work ethic, and by the time they graduated would have picked Isshin for a partner over just about any other member of their graduating class.

To say Ryuuken was shocked to be asked to be Isshin's best man would be something of an understatement. He agreed, though, and Isshin and a two-months-pregnant Masaki were honored guests at his own wedding six months later. It was about this time that he realized that the 'leverage' had become worthless, as he wouldn't turn Isshin in to his old organization for any reason.

They did their residency in Karakura Hospital together, and when Isshin left at the end of residency to set up a clinic, Ryuuken stayed at the hospital. He worked his way up to Hospital Director, every so often trying to convince Isshin to come back and take up a position in the surgery department. He considered Isshin's insisting on remaining in his little clinic something of a waste of the man's skills, but when Masaki died, leaving three little children behind he stopped asking, recognizing that Isshin would never return to the long hours a hospital required when he had his children to care for. So he responded the only way he could, by making it easy for Isshin to requisition a bed in the hospital for his patients and taking the rare referral himself when the ex-Captain had a patient he couldn't treat without the hospital's infrastructure.

Over the years, Ryuuken was more exposed to the various Shinigami living in Karakura than he might have liked. He gained a passing familiarity with the eccentric Urahara Kisuke, and later had cause to, if not like, then at least appreciate the value of the association. While Urahara might have been good at staying self-sufficient, there were some things one needed a doctor for and Ryuuken found himself responding to the odd medical emergency when Isshin wasn't on hand. In exchange, the storekeeper got information to him, primarily the locations of various Quincy heirlooms. The conversations he had with Urahara were short and tense, and carefully tiptoed around their respective histories, but Ryuuken was not the youngest Hospital Director in the hospital's history for nothing. By combining Isshin's story with what little snippets Urahara let slip and his own family's history he got an image of Soul Society and the Gotei 13 that he did not like at all.

When the rate at which Hollows appeared in Karakura began to increase, seventeen years after he'd met Isshin, Ryuuken began to increase the amount of Quincy weaponry he carried on him and started actively keeping tabs on the other doctor's reiatsu. If asked, he'd have said that he wanted to make sure any Hollows he came across were dealt with, but that was only half-right. It was only a matter of time before the ex-Captain started appearing in the uniform of the Shinigami again, and Ryuuken rather thought Isshin might appreciate the occasional backup.

**2)**

When Shinigami start trash-talking the Fourth division, one of their favorite examples to cite is Yamada Hanataro. What does it say about the division as a whole, they ask, if a seated officer (seventh seat, not the most powerful but still a position of some importance) is so pathetic? He's a liability in a combat zone, is always forgetting his Zanpakuto, and it's not like he's got enough of a presence to give or enforce orders.

What they don't understand is that Hanataro was given his position for two very specific reasons, and he is more than deserving of his rank. Firstly, Hanataro is an excellent healer. He's more than willing to work himself to the bone in the name of his patients and has a wonderful bedside manner that makes most people listen to him without realizing they're being manipulated. He loses a lower percentage of his patients than just about the entire medical staff – only four people lose fewer, and all of them are his seniors and superiors.

Secondly, when Hanataro began to be bullied in the Academy he deliberately made himself as non-threatening and unnoticeable as possible in an attempt to be left alone. It helped that he was already had a quiet and gentle personality and was a little bit clumsy. He succeeded dramatically. People either don't notice or ignore him, as he automatically registers as harmless. As a result, he overhears just as many conversations as the average member of Soifon's Onmitsukido without having to expend any energy staying hidden. When combined with his loyalty to his captain, this makes him an invaluable member of Unohana's unofficial intelligence network.

Unohana sometimes thinks that Hanataro could easily advance in rank to fifth seat, if he only had a little more self-confidence.

**3)**

Aizen is, for all his faults – his arrogance, his megalomania – not a stupid man. He is very, very good at assessing people, and it is this, more than his power, more than Kyouka Suigetsu, more than the Hougyoku, that makes him dangerous. He knows exactly what buttons to push and what words to say to infuriate his opponents and, since angry fighters make mistakes, give himself the advantage. Hitsugaya Toushiro is an excellent example of this – by tormenting Hinamori Momo he forced the youngest captain into a killing rage that made him careless.

He has on occasion miscalculated. Abarai Renji is one such case. He'd expected the man to lose his temper in much the same way Hitsugaya had when he baited him that day, standing at the base of the Soukyoku. The redhead cared for both Hinamori and Rukia as his baby sisters, and had already proven himself to be fiercely protective and hot-tempered. Perhaps he'd placed too much faith in the hair color; Renji remained calm enough to put up a credible fight, considering he was matched up against a far superior force and had been beaten into the ground by his own captain shortly before.

**4)**

For the Gotei 13's tacticians, the most worrying of the three rogue captains is not Aizen Sosuke, but Ichimaru Gin.

Aizen may be frighteningly powerful and willing to commit whatever atrocity to give himself the most powerful subordinates he can, but his motive is known. The man wants to break into the Royal dimension and become a god. This makes him the most predictable of the three, as he can be expected to follow the series of steps necessary to create the Key and gain access, using superior force to bull through any opposition.

Similarly, Tousen's driving purpose is known to the Gotei 13. The blind man believes that by following and supporting Aizen he is bringing a form of peace to the world, one where as few people as possible die violently. Whether or not he actually believes this hypocritical drivel is a matter of debate, but it is the motive he claims all the same. It has also been postulated that this may be paired with a desire to make the Shinigami pay for the poor way they police their own, triggered by the death of his friend at her Shinigami husband's hands, and it is generally agreed that this should be taken into consideration when trying to plan for Tousen's actions.

Gin, however, is an entirely different story. It is theorized that he follows Aizen out of a frighteningly strong sense of loyalty, but nobody knows what he gets out of their partnership, or if that's even true. And this worries people, because when it comes down to it they really have no idea how he'll react. Will he follow Aizen to the depths of Hell, or will he abandon the man if pushed far enough?

Guesses about Gin's eventual reward for his loyalty to Aizen range from the plausible (dominion over Seiretei) to the absurd (a legion of slaves whose sole duty is to bring him as many dried persimmons as he can eat). Another whispered hypothesis is that Gin just likes to mess with people, and Aizen gave him the best opportunity to do what he enjoys most. Only Gin and Aizen know the truth of the matter, and they're not telling.

**5)**

The single most dysfunctional relationship in the Gotei 13 is that of Kurotsuchi Mayuri and Kurotsuchi Nemu. Despite the way Mayrui claims her as his daughter and the devout loyalty she shows him, the general consensus is that Nemu would be better off without her 'parent'. She has been a victim of experimentation and abuse, both physical and emotional, at his hands, and nobody can understand why she's still so loyal to him.

What's really odd about it is that the loyalty runs both ways. But while Nemu's loyalty manifests itself as unwavering obedience, Mayuri seems to consider her as a cross between a favorite experiment and a toy, treating her with alternating bouts of possessiveness and indifference. It fits the profile of abuse, but considering how he treats his regular subordinates there is a marked difference in attitudes. Mayuri doesn't seem to consider Nemu replaceable either, for although he has the necessary resources to make a second 'child' he has never done so.

Nemu would die for Mayuri, and not just because it's in her programming. And should anything happen to her, Mayuri would move mountains to bring her back to life. He'd complain about it the entire time and reprimand her for it later, but not until she was back to normal.

**6)**

Uryuu never quite understood why his father was so irritated when he learned about his involvement with a Shinigami and their subsequent confrontations and tentative alliance with the Gotei 13. He attributed it to a combination of Ryuuken's refusal to adhere to the Quincy traditions and all that entailed and the natural Quincy dislike for Shinigami. In actuality, Ryuuken had no objection to Ichigo or his son's alliance with the boy. He respected the Kurosaki family, even if he thought they had a few screws loose, and trusted Isshin's parenting skills enough to believe the boy to be a decent person. His problem was that Uryuu had revealed himself to the Gotei 13, a group the older Quincy regarded as about as trustworthy as a pit of vipers and just as humane.

Ryuuken helped Uryuu regain his Quincy powers after he'd burned out fighting one of the Captains because he wanted his son to be able to defend himself when the Gotei 13 turned on him.

**7)**

The Exequias, the feared force that descended on any and all they deemed a threat to Aizen's goals, were actually an accident. Aizen had attempted turning a brand-new Gillian-class Menos Grande into an Arrancar, trying to figure out what power range he needed the Hollows in to obtain the best subordinates. He'd been expecting to get a fairly weak Arrancar, if it survived the process at all.

He wound up with Rudobon. An unexpectedly strong but surprisingly un-ambitious Arrancar who fractured, creating a legion of soldiers from himself.

Aizen only did a cursory study of the Arrancar – he had somewhat larger things to worry about, and as Rudobon was loyal and eager to serve he simply gave the bull-headed Arrancar a job, planning to take advantage of him for as long as he was useful. As far as he could tell, Rudobon was the personality that had happened to be dominating the Gillian when he turned it. The others, given physical form via Árbol, were drawn from the other souls, the ones that had yet to assimilate into a cohesive whole.

It's incorrect to call Rudoban an individual. He's got a cacophony of voices lurking at the corners and around the edges of his mind, waiting to push their way out into physicality again. It would be more accurate to describe him as a general who carries his armies in his pocket.

**8)**

Jinta and Ururu are the ultimate in special cases. Both of them owe their lives to the Vizard, and both live at the Urahara Shoten because they have nowhere else to go.

Jinta's family was on vacation in Kyoto when they were attacked by a large group of Hollows. They slaughtered his parents, who were just spirit-aware enough to get rough images of their attackers, then turned on him. Fortunately for him, Aikawa Love was in the area and picked up on the Hollows. Jinta was seconds away from being torn apart when a big guy with an afro slammed the nearest Hollow into the ground and then proceeded to beat the rest into oblivion in short order. Once the thoroughly one-sided fight was over, Love turned to go only to have the kid he'd saved grab his knees and hold on tightly, shaking. He was a little startled to discover that the six-year-old boy could see and touch him, but to his credit recovered fairly quickly.

Rather than leave immediately after killing the Hollows, Love stuck around to see what would happen to the kid. The Hanakari's death was determined to have been caused by an exploded gas pipe (which also conveniently explained the damage), and, as no relatives could be found, Jinta was declared a ward of the state. At this point, Love contacted Urahara Kisuke, and after some bargaining made the arrangements for the kid to go to the Shoten. In the end Kisuke agreed, perhaps convinced by Love's argument that a powerfully spirit-sensitive soul like Jinta's would only keep attracting Hollows, and unless he learned to defend himself he was a sitting duck. It was a cheap shot, but Kurosaki Masaki had just died less than a year before and Urahara couldn't help but react. Jinta was moved in a week later.

Ururu arrived about six months after, brought in by Ushoda Hachigen and Hirako Shinji. Unlike Jinta, whose family had simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Ururu's arrival was the result of a full-blown rescue.

Shinji had been in Beijing when he felt a Hollow being killed by something neither Shinigami nor Hollow. Curious and rather bored, he investigated, and was surprised to find himself confronted by a little girl with short black hair wearing what looked like hospital scrubs. He evaded her attempted attack rather easily, but later came back to observe. What he saw infuriated him. Somehow, someone with a lot of money and influence had figured out that paranormal predators existed, and then discovered a girl who could see and touch them. Ururu was being kept in a facility built into the wing of a mansion, a bunch of scientists running tests on her in an attempt to figure out what made her capable of interaction with spirits. Most of the experiments were minimally invasive, but some were frightening in their scope and aggressiveness.

Shinji had once been treated like a lab experiment, and had hated it. After he'd observed the situation for a week, he decided he was going to get the kid out as soon as he could. He was, however, experienced enough to recognize that he wouldn't be able to do it alone, not if he wanted to get away cleanly. So he contacted Hachigen. When the big man arrived from Belgium two days later, he quickly agreed to a rescue. After another two days of planning, they broke into the mansion and pulled the little girl out in an operation that required extensive use of kido and considerable ingenuity. Not knowing what else to do with her, they brought the nine-year-old to Urahara.

Both of the kids have been marked by their time before the Shoten. Jinta has developed a fondness for the kanabo, in memory of the gigantic club wielded by the man who saved his life. Ururu, meanwhile, retains much of the manners taught her to keep her manageable for the scientists and most of her conditioning. She's improved since she arrived at the Shoten, but she will forever be almost painfully polite and still turns into a drone when confronted by someone with odd spiritual pressure.

None of the Vizard involved in saving their lives stuck around. Hachi asks after Ururu occasionally, but Love and Shinji made the decision to remain out of contact. Sometimes, Kisuke is tempted to ambush them with the kids, if only to see what would happen.

**9)**

There is nothing that comes without a price. This is one of the Great Laws of the Universe, and not even the Hougyoku is immune. In its case, the price of its power to reform objects at its wielder's will is instability.

An excellent example is the Espada. Although the artificial Arrancar Aizen created are more powerful than the original, naturally forming Arrancar, they lack the stability of the Privaron. It's really only a matter of time before their enhanced power consumes them, breaking their minds completely and rendering them dangerous to everything around them, including themselves, as they lose control. In forcing the process, Aizen has effectively created ticking time bombs.

Aizen does not know this – none of his Arrancar have survived long enough for more than the beginnings of degradation to be observed. Whether he would even care is a moot point, as he is apparently confident enough in the artifact to use it on himself.

Urahara, meanwhile, does.

**10)**

Before its destruction, the Soukyoku was one of the greatest artifacts of the Gotei 13. Despite that, the Shinigami knew very little about it. Oh, they knew how it worked, approximately the amount of power it possessed, and how to trigger it, but almost nothing of its provenance could be found in the archives. Nobody knew where it came from, or how it had been created.

The reason for this is surprisingly simple: Soukyoku predated the archives. In point of fact, it predated the Gotei 13 by several thousand years.

Soukyoku was birthed by the mass voluntary sacrifice of a large group of people who could control reiatsu, the forerunners of the Shinigami. At that time, Hollows could make incursions into the world that would become Soul Society, and there was a desperate rush to create a way to hold them back, to protect the people who could not protect themselves. Some of the group had been training themselves to fight the Hollows, but their defense was inconsistent, and twice as many people died as succeeded. In the end, somebody came up with the idea of creating an Immortal Warrior, a being that could fight forever and take on anything thrown at it.

There was no question that this would require mass death. The amount of energy released by a dying soul more than tripled that the soul could release while alive, and a willing sacrifice again increased it fivefold. That being said, a lot of debating was done before they settled on method and material.

They would create a weapon. An intelligent weapon that needed no wielder. Self-immolation was chosen as the method, both because it would be more efficient and because the weapon would then be tempered in the heat of a fire fueled by sacrifice. The area chosen for the process was a large, flat stretch of land, bare of much more than grasses, but with plenty of trees nearby. Preparation took months, but finally, finally, they were ready.

One hundred people, of many different ages, assembled in the clearing, taking pre-planned spots within the lattice of wood laid out on the ground. They had only two things in common: their willingness to sacrifice themselves to protect their people, and their power levels. (In today's Gotei 13, they would all have been considered more powerful than all but the captains, lieutenants, and perhaps some third seats.)

The process was agonizing, and it took days. They died slowly, holding on as long as they could to feed their energy, their lives to the weapon/being taking form, the earth bucking and heaving around them as the wind screamed. Finally, it was done. The people were gone, burned to dust, as was much of the vegetation around the weapon. The once-flat earth had lifted, placing the weapon on a new promontory towering over everything around it.

At first, the weapon worked like a charm. At the faintest hint of a Hollow it would lash out, destroying the predator before it could get close. People began to build settlements underneath the high cliffs, depending on the protection offered but unwilling to get too close. As time went on, these settlements merged, becoming a single bustling city of sorts. Then the Gotei 13 was founded, and the Shinigami took up residence at the base of the cliffs, pushing those without the ability to mould reiatsu away. The Shinigami became better at their jobs, and fewer Hollows managed to break through. Finally, about two centuries after the last time the weapon took out a Hollow, one of the captains proposed finding a new use for the incredibly powerful but inactive weapon sitting on the great hill. After examination, it was decided that it would be used as an instrument of execution, to deal with the most dangerous Shinigami rebels. Strings of papers covered in seals were wrapped around the base, allowing the Shinigami to activate it at will, and locking away most of the weapon's intelligence to create nothing more than a well-tamed but barely aware creature of destruction. They named it Soukyoku.

Could Soukyoku's makers see what was done to their creation, born of blood and pain, sacrifice and fire, they would be horrorstruck. To chain it like the Shinigami had done, to deprive it of the intelligence that made it capable of taking out Hollows without instructions or someone to control it, would have been considered highest sacrilege.

* * *

[A/N]: When inspiration strikes, I suppose…

To forestall any comparisons to scenario from other anime/manga: yes, number 8 was partially inspired by Black Cat. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend it as an excellent series that beautifully satisfied my inner microbiologist as well.

Again, no idea when this is going to be updated. Thank you **Rusting Roses** for beta-reading.


	3. Third Scroll

Drops in the Bucket

Summary: Drabble collection on anything and everything in Bleach. Ten drabbles per chapter, randomness abounds, updates will be incredibly sporadic.

**The Laughing Phoenix** does not own Bleach. She is simply borrowing the franchise for the purposes of conjecture.

WARNING: Rampant speculation ahead.

* * *

Third Scroll

**1)**

Hisana faced more opposition than Byakuya knows when she agreed to marry him.

It had been Byakuya's intention to handle his clan himself, in part to remind them that he was their clan head and as such could not simply be pushed around, and in part to spare Hisana the headache of dealing with clan politics. He made his thoughts on the matter clear and spent hours fighting the clan elders. When they finished, he thought the whole thing settled.

This did not stop a number of the older and more hidebound members of the clan from harassing Hisana in private. Their tactics varied – a couple of them tried sending her letters, some sent lackeys to relay their messages, and some approached her in person. They ranged from those who tried to convince Hisana to "let Byakuya-sama go" so that he could "fulfill his clan duties" and told her that she wouldn't be able to handle being Lady of "the greatest of the noble clans", to those who insisted she was nothing more than a gold-digging whore and tried to scare her away with threats of violence.

Nobody let the slightest hint of this fall in front of Byakuya. The man had made it perfectly clear from the beginning that Hisana was not to be bothered by his clan, and the elders were firm self-preservationists.

However, the elders had miscalculated. Hisana had survived Rukongai's outer districts, survived in Inuzuri (even if she'd failed her baby sister, which she knew would haunt her for the rest of her life). She might not have been physically strong, but it was going to take more than a dozen haughty men and women who had never had to worry about where their next meal was coming from to intimidate her. She might not love Byakuya in quite the same way he did her, in a powerful, all-consuming way that would shatter convention and tradition rather than be denied, but she cared for him and would try to make him happy. She didn't need the approval of Byakuya's family to do that. She wasn't going to run to him with this either. He'd feel obligated to protect her, and the elders would feel justified in their accusations that she was unfit.

In the end, she found an unexpected ally in Kuchiki Ginrei. Byakuya's grandfather had been a spectator in the drama, quietly supporting his beloved grandson but generally keeping himself out of the arguments. She'd returned to her apartments from a visit to the gardens a month before the wedding to find Ginrei ensconced on the porch, drinking tea. He gestured for her to sit beside him, and they spent a half an hour discussing the garden before he rose and bade her a good afternoon. After that first afternoon he kept dropping by every week or so, and they would have tea and talk about neutral subjects. Ginrei's visits to Hisana intimidated the elders, who did not have the hubris to go up against the former clan head when he appeared to approve of the match.

**2)**

Sarugaki Hiyori was never one to willingly stand still. When the Vizard finally pulled themselves together after their forced conversion and exile and managed to gain a modicum of control over their inner Hollows, they split, spreading out around the world, passing time until they could get back at Aizen. Unlike Lisa, who spent time travelling and reading voraciously, or Rose, who immediately began immersing himself in music, or even Hachi, who settled down in Western Europe and spent his days studying quietly, Hiyori found herself a job. And, since she had been 12th division and had been around for the founding of the Gotei 13's RDI, she began working in the sciences.

At first, the jobs were terrible. Her apparent age and gender worked against her, and for the longest time all she could do was act as a secretary or general dogsbody, switching identities with each job. She worked for Einstein for a while, before quietly stepping out of his life when he was forced to flee the Nazi regime. She left Germany herself a couple of years later and, after some sniffing around and some help from Urahara, got herself on the Manhattan Project. When Site Y became essential, she finagled a transfer there.

When WWII ended, she left atomic physics for a brief dabble in chemistry before trying her hand at biology. She did fieldwork for a couple of decades before returning to the lab, even doing a round on the lecture circuit. When Genetics began to rear its head she tried to get in on it, but barely lasted a week before she had to leave – they were talking cloning and transgenic hybrids, and damn if it didn't give her flashbacks to her last days in Soul Society. She tracked down Shinji and challenged him to a fight, and felt much better for the brawl afterward.

She went back to atomic physics after that, claiming to be her own granddaughter. She was hailed as something of a genius in the field and spent another decade doing work on atomic energy and nuclear waste disposal before Urahara contacted her, saying he had a student who needed the Vizard's training, and broadly hinting that Aizen was on the move.

It was what Hiyori had been waiting for. She faked her death the following weekend (useful things, cars) and lit out for Japan. Back in France, the papers lamented the loss of a brilliant scientific mind.

**3)**

Ukitake had perfectly normal lungs as a child. His crippling ailment did not appear until he was a young adult, and only four people alive today know why.

The truth was that not many people supported Yamamoto's Academy at the beginning. The sums of money required to prepare buildings, train teachers, get supplies, uniforms, and feed the students were nearly prohibitively large, and very few of those within Soul Society with money were interested in contributing. The Gotei 13 was still a fledgling organization and nowhere near wealthy enough to set up a school on the scale of Yamamoto's endeavor, and the man knew it'd take patrons to get the Academy off the ground. Wealthy ones.

In the end, the Spirit King ended up getting involved. A representative of the King arrived in Seireitei one day bearing a summons for a high court, with instructions for Yamamoto to prepare his arguments. In front of as many noble families as could get a member into the council as well as the representative acting as the King's proxy Yamamoto successfully defended his school, and less than a week later a missive had arrived from the Spirit King authorizing a new tax, the funds it generated earmarked for the training of more Shinigami.

A number of nobles who had been opposed to the Academy took offense, and some of them transferred their resentment to Yamamoto himself.

Ten years after the tax had been authorized, Yamamoto found himself invited to a banquet which the Kuchiki clan was hosting. Appended to his invitation was a recommendation from the clan head that he bring a few of his best students along, so as to represent the Academy. In the end, he chose three of his students – Unohana Retsu, in her last year at the Academy, and Ukitake Juushiro and Kyoraku Shunsui, both two years from graduation.

The time before the actual meal was dedicated to socializing, with servers moving around carrying drinks, and Yamamoto allowed his students to go mingle a little, though he kept a close eye on them. For the most part things went well, some of the nobles asking questions, while younger members of the nobility tried to flirt with them. Shunsui was in his element, flirting right back so outrageously that nobody could take him seriously, while Retsu and Juushiro tended to direct the conversation back onto safer paths anytime someone tried to get too personal.

Juushiro had retreated to the sidelines for something to drink and a bit of air, and so was the only one to notice the server approaching Yamamoto from behind, pulling some sort of device from inside his sleeve and obviously up to no good. Shouting a warning, the young Shinigami-in-training shunpo'd across the intervening space and rammed the man aside, not four feet from his mentor.

There was a brief scrabble on the floor, both males fighting for control of the device, but Juushiro lost as, with a snarl, the server set it off, killing himself in the process. The explosion shook the room and people screamed as a cloud of gas materialized in the middle of the gathering. Things devolved into chaos from there.

Shunsui was there first, firing off the first kido he could think of to clear the air before hauling the corpse of the assassin off his best friend with a roar. Retsu was right behind him, dropping to her knees at Juushiro's side and calling on Minazuki's shikai for the third time in her life. Behind his students, Yamamoto called up a number of barrier kido to lock down the hall.

While Yamamoto, the Kuchiki clan head, and the man's heir went through the crowd of nobility and servers, trying to find the person who'd hired the assassin, Retsu worked desperately to save Juushiro's life, Shunsui standing guard over them with his hand on the hilts of his Zanpakuto, all but growling at those who came too close. Minutes later the Kuchiki clan healer appeared next to them and joined Retsu, and between them they managed to stabilize Juushiro.

Juushiro lived, but his lungs had taken serious damage. A lot of the delicate tissue was heavily scarred, and it was months before he was allowed to return to his normal schedule. That injury would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life, the thin, blood-filled membranes in his lungs prone to tearing.

**4)**

Yamamoto breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he learned that Kurosaki Ichigo had lost his abilities in the battle against Aizen. The boy had been powerful, too powerful for his comfort. He'd allowed Juushiro to talk him into giving the boy the Substitute Shinigami position after the Ryoka incident, but at that time Kurosaki was not well-trained in controlling his powers and thus no real threat to anyone other than a hollow.

When the boy ignored his instructions and took off for Hueco Mundo, Yamamoto had known that before long he'd have to do something about the boy. Despite the appearance of impenetrable strength and stability the Gotei 13 projected, the organization had been badly damaged with Aizen's betrayal and there was still a power vacuum. Having a Shinigami that powerful with no apparent interest in supporting the Gotei 13 when it needed every prop it could get made him irritable – as far as Yamamoto was concerned, Kurosaki should have leapt at the chance to join the Gotei and get some real training, not least because it would have placed the boy under his command.

After the battle, listening to reports from both Hueco Mundo and Fake-Karakura, Yamamoto quickly came to the conclusion that Kurosaki's loss of power was far and away for the best. That the boy more-or-less cooperated with his Inner Hollow abominated him in Yamamoto's eyes, and that he was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Aizen, if only for a few, necessary minutes, made him strong enough to be a threat. No, it was far better that the boy be reduced to a normal human. It would save him the headache of finding a way to incapacitate or kill Kurosaki without Yoruichi or Urahara or Hirako or whatever other ungodly allies the boy had on hand figuring it out.

**5)**

If Orihime never sees another injury on her friends again, it will be too soon. Tsubaki was right on the money when he said Orihime didn't have what it took to use him properly, and she is more than willing to admit to herself that she is not a fighter, she's a healer. Seeing people in pain is in itself painful to her, and when it's her friends it hurts even more. Being able to do something helps, if only a little, which is why she's concentrated on Ayame and Shun'o to the extent she has.

Hueco Mundo only exacerbated this. Orihime knows that for the rest of her life her nightmares will be full of white stones and black sky and blood.

**6)**

Zaraki Kenpachi doesn't believe in mourning the dead. Remembering them with respect, yes, because for the most part the people whose deaths mattered to him were those who were handy in a fight, and a good fighter always deserved respect. But mourning? Being sad because they were gone and you were still there? Nah. It did no good for anybody, neither the living nor the dead, and was just a big waste of energy, as far as he could tell.

Someone once tried to explain the urge to Kenpachi, and they ended up using Yachiru as an example, asking him how he'd feel if something happened to her. Kenpachi's response was that nothing was going to happen to Yachiru if he could help it, and any punk trying to kill her was going to end up dead in a hurry.

**7)**

Every single one of the Vizard has considered going on a killing spree at some point since their Hollowfication. Only one of them has.

Yadomaru Lisa massacred an entire ring of human traffickers specializing in children. She appeared at one staging point, slaughtered every adult there, rifled through the paperwork to find the next, and moved on. Rinse and repeat. Love and Rojuro caught up with her after the sixth such slaughter hit the news. They quietly got her thoroughly drunk and she ended up sobbing on Love's shoulder, a picture she'd been carrying with her on the table. The picture showed a trio of frightened children in the first warehouse she'd hit. Rojuro couldn't help but note to himself that the youngest girl looked like Lisa's old protégé, Ise Nanao.

**8)**

Hinamori Momo is regarded by the lieutenants and captains of the Gotei 13 with no small amount of pity. They do this for two different reasons.

The captains pity Momo because she was so thoroughly shattered by Aizen's betrayal. She was a good enough lieutenant – nothing spectacular, but reliable and consistent, the sort of girl who knew her own abilities – but her breakdown after Aizen's betrayal has disqualified her from ever advancing in the Gotei. In point of fact, she will probably never regain her position of lieutenant, and there's been talk of transferring her to the Kido Corps. She's got the skills for it, and their detachment from the day-to-day running of Soul Society would probably keep her out of trouble.

The lieutenants pity her for the loss of trust she sustained. There is a certain code of honor among the lieutenants: it is their duty to be their captain's right hand, be whatever they need them to be to keep them from exhausting themselves, whether it be taskmaster, confidante, or source of comic relief. Their duty to their captain is paramount, and for Momo, Shuuhei, and Izuru to have been betrayed by those they honored and trusted implicitly is the greatest loss they can imagine. Momo's dedication to Aizen, and subsequent loss, is merely the most extreme of the three.

**9)**

Tia Harribel took a certain sadistic pleasure in beating the hell out of Nnoitra Gilga. It was something that happened on a fairly regular basis – he'd challenge her, sometimes disguising it as a request for a friendly spar, sometimes not, and she'd play with him for a while before defeating him in the most painful way she could manage.

There were two reasons for this. The first is that his attitude simply annoyed her. Her position as Tercera was more than justified and something she took a bit of pride in. There was no way she was going to lie down and let him walk all over her just because he had more between his legs and less on his chest than she did.

The second is that she remembered Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck. She'd been a young Arrancar then, just made, and completely unused to her resurrección. The then-Tercera had stopped to give her a bit of advice, and Tia had to admire both the way she took some time to pay attention to a complete nobody and the older woman's power. When word of what Nnoitra had done got around, she made it a private goal to become a higher-ranked Espada than he was, because then she could get on his nerves and rub his utter idiocy in his face, all without even having to lift a finger.

**10)**

At one point, shortly after she gained her powers, Orihime considered going into medicine. This lasted all of a week before she realized that she'd never be able to hold off the urge to use her Shun Shun Rikka on her patients.

* * *

[A/N]: As usual, no telling when the next will be. Hope you enjoyed.

References:

Manhattan Project and Site Y: Codenames from a project to develop the first atomic bombs during WWII. The Manhattan Project, so named because it was first begun and organized beneath Manhattan, was a primarily US-led effort, but the UK and Canada both participated. Site Y was where the final assembly of the bombs took place. Today it's known as Los Alamos National Laboratories and is located in northern New Mexico, about 200 miles north of the Trinity Site, where the bomb was first tested.


	4. Fourth Scroll

Drops in the Bucket

Summary: Drabble collection on anything and everything in Bleach. Ten drabbles per chapter, randomness abounds, updates will be incredibly sporadic.

**The Laughing Phoenix** does not own Bleach. She is simply borrowing the franchise for the purposes of conjecture.

WARNING: Rampant speculation ahead.

* * *

Fourth Scroll

**1)**

The current Captains are, in fact, ignorant of the Lieutenant's code of honor. Actually, that's not quite true – most of them know it exists in some form or another (Hitsugaya got it out of Matsumoto when she got spectacularly drunk just after Gin's betrayal, Nanao once mentioned it to Kyoraku when she brought him back to his apartment one night after prying him out of a bar, because he asked why she kept coming after him and she thought he was too drunk to remember), but none of them know the details. This is because the current captains fall into three categories: those who made captain without ever being lieutenant, those who made captain from lieutenant before the current version of the code was hammered out, and those who have forgotten or discarded what they knew of it.

Hinamori Momo and Kira Izuru are unfortunate in that their captains _did_ know the code in all its complexity, and had no compunctions about using it against them.

**2)**

When Arisawa Tatsuki first learns exactly what Ichigo's been up to, she threatens to beat him up. She informs him in no uncertain terms that she can see ghosts, that he knows full damn well she can hold her own in a fight, and they've been friends since they were little kids, so he should have known better than to decide to leave her out of things. She then continues by pointing out that Ishida, Chad, and Orihime got involved, so why not she?

Ichigo's attempts to insist that he would have left them out of it if he could are shouted down. Ishida informs him that he's being even more moronic than usual, Orihime tells him he's silly with a slight, sad smile on her face, and Chad simply says that they promised a long time ago to watch each other's backs.

Then Ichigo tries to make the argument that all three of the others have spiritual powers that Tatsuki does not, so at least they could to a certain extent protect themselves. Tatsuki looks at him for a moment, glances at the other three, then grabs Ichigo by the ear, drags him outside, and proceeds to smack him around. The others don't interfere - they think Ichigo's had it coming to him for a while now.

**3)**

Aizen had it right when he compared the Spirit King to a God. The Spirit King has the highest known levels of reiatsu, no competition. The gap between his power and that of the Captains, like Yamamoto, Hitsugaya, or Zaraki is comparable to that between the Captains and your average soul. And while the three of them have been known to drive opponents to their knees with the sheer force of their reiatsu, the Spirit King would have them flat on the ground just by breathing. All it would take to tear apart Seireitei would be him losing his temper.

The Royal dimension was created to seal all that power away. In this sense, the Spirit King is something of a weapon of last resort. It is tacitly understood that, should Soul Society ever be overrun, the King will enter the battlefield.

**4)**

The Quincy lore is, in some ways, richer than that of Soul Society. When the Quincies realized that the Shinigami were hunting them, they hastily developed a network of safe houses and other hidey-holes. They cached their weapons and the few written descriptions of and instructions for their techniques, then tried to go to ground themselves.

Perhaps a dozen trained Quincies emerged from the purge, having hidden themselves as well as they could, with perhaps half again as many of their untrained children. However, due to the horrific losses they'd suffered, about a third of them remained cut off from the rest of their kind, unaware that other Quincies had survived. The Ishida family is descended from one of these.

The other Quincy lines either died out or stopped practicing. There are perhaps three or four hundred people with traces of Quincy blood alive worldwide. However, they have long since lost all cultural knowledge of their ancestors, and it is that knowledge which makes a true Quincy.

Ishida Ryuuken holds the most complete knowledge of the ancient Quincy network. He regularly updates his written records, which are stored in a safe-deposit box at a bank. Upon his death, it will all go to his son. He will never admit it, but he rather enjoys the idea that caches of Quincy artifacts and records might still exist – since he's officially renounced his heritage, he's not supposed to care.

Another fact he will never admit: about a quarter of what he knows about the network is due to leads Urahara Kisuke gave him.

**5)**

The relationship between Hell and the Gotei 13 is a weird one. Each relies on the other in some ways, although you'd never get them to admit it. Since the Shinigami are notoriously short-handed in ways that mean they have trouble policing the residents of the Rukongai, they need a secure dumping ground for the most dangerous souls, those accustomed to such things as assault, rape, and murder. Allowing them into the Rukongai would be the height of idiocy, and would probably bring the walls of Seireitei crashing down on the Shinigami's heads within days. Meanwhile, Hell has no way to collect all its new residents, relying on the Shinigami to catch souls that somehow don't get sent straight along upon death.

At one point, there was some discussion of Hell's having their own variant on the Shinigami, deliberately chosen to hunt down the more toxic souls before they could undergo hollowfication. It was shut down quickly when people remembered that the residents of Hell were all either the perpetrators of crimes against humanity or demons. Nobody wanted to work with either.

An alternate method was decided upon. Higher numbers of Shinigami would be trained, and they would be taught to recognize the Gates of Hell as allies. In return, the Gatekeepers would only come for the souls the Shinigami had already gotten to. So far, it's worked.

**6)**

Inoue Orihime is generally considered to be a terrible liar. This is only half true.

If asked a direct question, particularly about herself, she cannot dissemble to save her life. She stutters, flails her arms, and desperately tries to redirect the conversation to safer paths – usually completely random ones utterly at odds with whatever the conversation had been. Even if the question has been asked in innocence, her reaction invariably tells her conversation partner that she's got information she does not want to share.

She is, however, surprisingly good at keeping secrets. In this, her apparent flightiness is her greatest asset. People often don't think to ask her questions, and she's very good at keeping them distracted to ensure it stays that way. Nobody seems to think she'd know anything. In the rare cases where someone has pursued a trail of information to her, she shuts down, the cheerful girl disappearing behind the quiet, mournful woman who has seen too much pain that Hueco Mundo taught her to be. This transformation is jarring at the best of times, and it usually causes people to leave her alone.

**7)**

Soifon is not, by nature, a particularly cheerful person. Most people would describe her as driven, proud, reserved. The less charitable might call her standoffish, or even an ice bitch. Soifon knows all of this – she's head of the Onmitsukido, of course she hears the rumors – and it does not make her feel terribly charitable to her detractors.

All of this being said, Soifon has only ever truly hated once. It was right after Yoruichi defected: as her protégé, Soifon was best-prepared and best-placed to take on both the Onmitsukido and the Second division, but at the same time there were those who said that Soifon had been 'infected' or 'contaminated' by Yoruichi's philosophies, and therefore could not be trusted.

Everything came to a head when one of the more hidebound members of the Shihouin family loudly and publicly belittled Yoruichi and, by extension, Soifon. The man in question was tipsy at the time, and began ranting about Yoruichi's perceived failings as Shinigami captain, captain of the Onmitsukido, and head of the Shihouin family. Among the vitriol was the claim that since Yoruichi was so flawed as a leader and commander, Soifon could not be trusted and should be replaced.

Soifon's temper, already shortened by being forced into acting as the de-facto head of the Onmitsukido and captain of the Second division without any forewarning or any of the rewards of the positions and her abandonment by her beloved mentor, snapped. The man found himself taken into custody for disorderly conduct, treated with a complete lack of respect, and extensively humiliated. (Soifon had connections, and was not afraid to use them).

Since then, Soifon has taken out her frustrations on hollows or members of her division in sparring matches. Once the original flare of anger died down, she felt rather embarrassed by how she'd acted, and quietly promised herself she'd never do it again.

**8)**

A large part of the way Matsumoto Rangiku behaves is a deliberate choice. While it is in her nature to be easygoing and more than a little bit lazy, she is more than capable of being level-headed, responsible, and serious if the situation calls for it. She would never have made seated officer otherwise, never mind lieutenant.

When Hitsugaya made captain of the tenth, Matsumoto spent a couple of days getting all the information she could about him from the gossip vine. Between that and her own observations, she assembled a picture of a serious, driven prodigy who if not careful ran a real risk of burning himself out within two decades. The boy seemed to have no comprehension of the idea of 'free time', as every minute he was not on duty, eating, or sleeping was spent training.

Matsumoto Rangiku is a firm believer in and an ardent follower of the Lieutenant's Creed. She quickly determined that what her new captain needed most was a distraction, and designed her behavior accordingly. She'd indulge her fondness for alcohol and socializing, let her paperwork slip a bit. When necessary, she'd be the competent, efficient, and battle-capable right hand she'd been trained to be, but for day-to-day business she'd be lazy and a little bit silly. She'd be the slightly kooky older sister Hitsugaya Toushiro needed, who drove him up the wall and made him smile in spite of himself at the same time.

**9)**

When Hirako Shinji calls nearly every woman and girl he meets his "first love", he is in a weird way telling the truth.

Part of it is a decision he made a long time ago: people took themselves too damn seriously, so he wasn't going to bother. He would live with the attitude he chose, and if it was cockeyed and more than a little goofy in a way that made people object, well, that was their problem, not his. It's an attitude that's been sharpened somewhat since hollowfication, and while he's still good at striking up friendships he's far slower to trust than he once was, and his humor has picked up that much more of a bite. He refuses, however, to let go of his capacity for love – as far as he's concerned, it's a large part of what keeps him separate from the hollow.

Part of it is that he honestly appreciates physical beauty and has an eye for the details. Each woman's a little bit different, and so he loves each of them a little bit differently. When he calls a woman his 'first love', it's because she's the first love of that particular type. In his long life, he's never met two women who fit the exact same set of characteristics, and he knows he never will.

And if you managed to catch Shinji in a truthful mood (or drugged him silly), he might admit that part of it is something he does to get a rise out of people – particularly Hiyori.

**10)**

Kuchiki Rukia believes that Orihime is the best friend she's ever had. She's had other friends, sure, but she buried most of them back in Inuzuri, and while she's known Renji for longer than she's known anybody else, the tall redhead has long since stopped being 'friend' in her mind and started being 'family' instead.

Byakuya has never been anything but 'family', even if it was at first a little awkward to be adopted by the somber, powerful noble. And after she was adopted, there weren't many chances to make friends: the rukon-born and less affluent of the Seireitei recognized her new last name as nobility and gave her a wide berth, while the few nobles her age looked down their noses at her for being rukon-born. Even after she joined her squad, the opportunities for friendship were few and far between. Kaien might have been the closest she'd come to her squad mates, and he was firmly in the position of 'mentor'.

And then came the living world. Of those she's met there, Rukia is closest to Ichigo and Orihime. It's difficult for her to define her relationship with Ichigo, who went swiftly from 'annoyance' to 'mentee' to 'friend' to…well…she's not sure what to call him anymore. 'Friend' feels both right and oddly inadequate and trying to puzzle it out tends to give her headaches.

Orihime, however, is everything Rukia ever imagined a girl friend might be. They can spar and train together, and when they take a break they can talk about just about everything, including the 'girly' conversations about clothing and boys that Rukia had never had before. While she's not exactly friendless, the Gotei 13 is still very much a male-dominated organization, and most of her buddies and/or sparring partners are therefore men. Of the female exceptions to the rule, Rukia finds them too intimidating (Unohana-taicho and Soifon-taicho, Matsumoto-san, Kotetsu Isane-san, and Ise-san), too crazily energetic (Yachiru-fukutaicho and Kotetsu Kiyone), or too creepy (Kurotsuchi Nemu-san) to be really comfortable with any of them. Orihime is easy to talk to, sunny, and always willing to offer a sympathetic ear, all of which Rukia appreciates more than she can explain. The best she can do is dust off the 'best friend' category in her mind, which was vacated when Renji became 'family', and place Orihime there.

* * *

A/N: Hello! Usual drill, I'm afraid – the next scroll'll be out when I have ten more of these. It could be next week, next month, or this summer.

As usual, much applause and thanks to **Rusting Roses** for beta-reading this for me.


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